· Private foundation
Columbian Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CAYUGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| SKANEATELES EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER | $7,500 |
| LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF CAYUGA COUNTY | $6,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,200 |
| AUBURN PUBLIC THEATER | $5,100 |
| KING FERRY FOOD PANTRY | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM | $5,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF CAYUGA COUNTY INC | $5,000 |
| MATTHEW HOUSE | $4,500 |
| PERFORM 4 PURPOSE | $3,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $2,500 |
| CALVARY FOOD PANTRY | $2,500 |
| UNION SPRINGS SOCCER CLUB | $2,500 |
| ST ALPHONSUS FOOD PANTRY | $2,500 |
| MORAVIA HOPE PANTRY | $2,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–22, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +39% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- TCTHE CAYUGA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $30k · revenue +78%
- APAUBURN PUBLIC THEATER INC4× · 2020–2024 · $28k · revenue +116%
- UWUNITED WAY OF CAYUGA COUNTY INC5× · 2020–2024 · $25k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- UHUNITY HOUSE OF CAYUGA COUNTY INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +8%
- MWMASTER WORKS CHORALEone grant, 2022 · $5k
- TRTHE REV THEATERone grant, 2021 · $5k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To promote appreciation and awareness of the arts in the skaneateles area.
Create, develop, and present works and ideas that connect artists and audiences, children and adults, and to strengthen and enliven communities through diverse exposure, access to, and participation in the arts. in all our creative…
The audubon society of new york state, inc. conducts environmental education and technical assistance programs, conducts research to protect and preserve wildlife habitat and water resources, and promotes sustainable resource management…
N/a
The mission of the Organization is to collect, preserve and interpret the rich heritage of the Town of Aurora, New York.
To operate exclusively for the benefit of, by providing fundraising and financial assistance to auburn community hospital, inc, auburn community companies, inc, auburn community properties, inc, and any other organizations with the same or…
Connect. engage. inspire. seymour library inspires a love of reading, learning, and discovery through individual growth and community connections in an engaging and welcoming environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Skaneateles Early Childhood Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 23. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 8% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 49 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE CAYUGA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN PUBLIC THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CAYUGA COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds SKANEATELES EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF CAYUGA CO INC ↗
- Who funds SCHWEINFURTH MEMORIAL ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds MATTHEW HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds King Ferry Food Pantry Inc ↗
- Who funds PERFORM 4 PURPOSE INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN COMMUNITY HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds THE RESCUE MISSION ALLIANCE OF SYRACUSE ↗
- Who funds FORT HILL CEMETERY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds SKANEATELES LAKE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds CAYUGA MUSEUM OF HISTORY & ART INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN HOCKEY CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds UNITY HOUSE OF CAYUGA COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN LACROSSE BOOSTERS INC ↗
- Who funds SKANEATELES FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds SKANEATELES HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PEACHTOWN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE WOODS NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN SPORTS BOOSTERS INC ↗
- Who funds SKANEATELES ECUMENICAL FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds LAKER TRANSPORTATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds AUBURN HUNGER TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds HARRIET TUBMAN LIBERATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNION SPRINGS SOCCER CLUB INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Stanley W Metcalf Foundation Inc · Fred L Emerson Foundation Inc · Central New York Community Foundation Inc · De French Foundation Inc · Allyn Family Foundation Inc · Collier Community Foundation Inc · JM McDonald Foundation Inc · Dwight W Winkelman Foundation Inc · The Schwartz Family Foundation Inc · The John Ben Snow Foundation Inc · The Dr Joseph F Karpinski Sr Foundation · United Way of Cayuga County Inc
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Columbian Foundation Inc funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Columbian Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Columbian Foundation Inc through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.